1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card processing apparatus and more particularly, to a card processing apparatus capable of introducing a card into its inside to perform predetermined processes, such as reading information from the card. In particular, it is preferred that this apparatus is applied to the processes of cards having transparency.
The present invention is applicable to a variety of card processing apparatuses having the function of introducing a card into its inside and the function of ejecting a card from its inside to its outside, such as Automated Teller Machines (ATM), vending machines, card vending machines, and card charging machines.
The term “card” used in this specification widely means a card-shaped article, which includes not only card-shaped information storage media with transparency (i.e., information storage medium cards) but also cards and card-shaped articles without transparency and/or information storage function. Concretely speaking, the term “card” includes telephone cards, prepaid cards, character cards, portrait photographs, amusement cards, magnetic-stripe cards (e.g., credit cards and bank cards), IC cards, bar-coded cards, and other thin plate-shaped articles made of paper, plastic or the like that are equivalent to or larger than these cards in thickness.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the first prior art apparatus relating to the present invention, a card handling apparatus disclosed in Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publication No. 2005-173947 published in 2005 is known (see FIG. 3, claim 1, and Paragraphs 0009, 0014 to 0016, and 0023 to 0024). This prior art card handling apparatus comprises a card insertion hole for receiving a card inserted which has an information storage part; card conveying means for conveying the card inserted into the card insertion hole; card information reading means for reading information stored in the information storage part of the card conveyed by the card conveying means; and card reading position detecting means for detecting conveyance of the card to a position at which the card information reading means reads the information in the card. The card reading position detecting means is located on the path of the information storage part of the card when the card is conveyed by the card conveying means and at the same time, it is located before and/or behind the card information reading means in the card conveying direction of the card conveying means.
Concretely speaking, with this prior art card handling apparatus, all of the sensors serving as the card reading position detecting means, that is, an optical sensor for detecting the insertion of the card (first sensor), an optical sensor for detecting the position of the card (second sensor), an optical sensor for measuring the information reading timing which is placed before (on the upstream side of) the magnetic head for information reading (third sensor), and an optical sensor for measuring the information reading timing which is placed behind (on the downstream side of) the magnetic head (fourth sensor), are arranged on the path of the information storage part (e.g., the magnetic stripe) of the card which is conveyed by the card conveying means. Due to such the configuration, the information storage part of the card is surely detected by the aforementioned optical sensors during conveyance; therefore, even a card that is made transparent excluding the information storage part (a so-called skeleton card) can be surely detected.
As the second prior art apparatus relating to the present invention, a card processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4888789 issued in 2011 is known (see FIGS. 2 and 4, claim 1, and Paragraphs 0023, 0034 to 0043, and 0048 to 0072). This prior art card processing apparatus comprises an optical sensor for detecting card insertion which is provided at a card insertion hole of a card conveying path; an optical sensor for detecting a card length which is provided on the downstream side of a card inserting direction at a predetermined interval from the sensor for detecting card insertion; a card conveying mechanism for feeding the card placed in the card conveying path; and a conveyance controller for controlling the operating condition of the card conveying mechanism based on the signals from the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection.
On the conveying path between the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection, a sensor for detecting existence of a card regardless of whether the card is transparent or opaque is provided. The conveyance controller comprises card feed control means for driving the card conveying mechanism in the card insertion direction in response to a card detection signal from the sensor for card insertion detection; length judgment means for judging whether or not the length of an opaque part of a card reaches a predetermined length based on a signal from the sensor for card insertion detection and a signal from the sensor for card length detection; and card returning action regulating means for regulating an action of returning a card. When it is judged by the length judgment means that the length of the opaque part of the card reaches the predetermined length, the card returning action regulating means keeps a card feed by the card conveying mechanism. On the other hand, when it is judged by the length judgment means that the length of the opaque part of the card does not reach the predetermined length, it is further judged whether or not a card is detected by the sensor for card existence detection and then, if it is judged that a card is detected, the card returning action regulating means drives the card conveying mechanism in the card ejecting direction to thereby eject the card through the card insertion hole, and returns the card conveying mechanism to its initial state. If it is judged that a card is not detected, the card returning action regulating means returns the card conveying mechanism to its initial state immediately.
With the aforementioned card processing apparatus as the second prior art, the sensor for card existence detection is placed on the conveying path between the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection (all of which are optical sensors), thereby making it possible to judge the existence or non-existence of a card regardless of whether the card is transparent or opaque. Moreover, only when a card is detected, the card conveying mechanism is driven by the card returning action regulating means in the card ejecting direction, thereby ejecting the card through the card insertion hole; when a card is not detected, the card conveying mechanism is immediately returned to its initial state by the card returning action regulating means, thereby preparing the insertion of a next card. For this reason, when a card with a transparent part and an opaque part is processed in this prior-art card processing apparatus, the existence or non-existence of the card can be found by the sensor for card existence detection in the state where the opaque part of the card that is being conveyed is placed on the conveying path between the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection. Therefore, even in the state where the card is unable to be detected by any of the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection, a meaningless card returning process can be surely prevented, which raises the operation efficiency of this card processing apparatus.
With the aforementioned card handling apparatus as the first prior art, however, if a skeleton card is inserted into the card insertion hole in an erroneous state or attitude, there is a problem that the card thus inserted is unable to be handled normally in this apparatus.
For example, when a skeleton card is inserted into the card insertion hole in such a way that its surface and back are inverted or its front and rear are inverted, or when a skeleton card which is wholly transparent and which has no information storage part is inserted into the card insertion hole, information reading from the card thus inserted and/or information writing into the card is/are unable to be carried out. This is because the information storage part of the skeleton card thus inserted is unable to be detected by any of the first to fourth optical sensors serving as the card reading position detecting means. Accordingly, there arises a problem that the inserted card is unable to be handled normally in this prior-art card handling apparatus, which means that a predetermined card ejecting operation of ejecting the inserted card from the apparatus through the card insertion hole needs to start immediately while judging this state an “error”.
Moreover, with the aforementioned card processing apparatus as the second prior art, the existence or non-existence of a card can be detected by the sensor for card existence detection located on the conveying path between the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection regardless of whether the card is a skeleton card or not. However, both of the sensor for card insertion detection and the sensor for card length detection are formed by optical sensors. Thus, these two sensors are located at the positions where the opaque information storage part of a skeleton card which is inserted through the card insertion hole can be detected. For this reason, when a skeleton card is inserted into the card insertion hole in such a way that its surface and back are inverted or its front and rear are inverted, or when a skeleton card which is wholly transparent and which has no information storage part is inserted into the card insertion hole, there arises a problem that the insertion or non-insertion of the skeleton card into the card insertion hole and the position of the inserted skeleton card in this prior-art card processing apparatus are unable to be detected.